Pope Francis: A step forward or a step back?

Cardinal Blase Cupich’s prayer at the Democratic Convention in Chicago has generated much controversy. The pro-life world accused him of not saying a word about the free abortions and vasectomies that Planned Parenthood offered right outside the convention venue. The conservative world noticed with dismay how he never uttered the name of God.

A cardinal’s prayer at a party convention is not uncommon, and it has already happened in the United States, both for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party Conventions. It is difficult to find a convention in Europe either opened or closed by the prayer of a man of faith.

However, the point is not the prayer nor the electoral climate in the United States, which has become heated again since US President Joe Biden took a step back and left his place as Democratic candidate to Kamala Harris, his vice-president. The point is rather that the controversy surrounding Cardinal Cupich comes amid a solid transition for the Church in the United States.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley has left the leadership of the Archdiocese of Boston after leading it through the troubled waters of the post-abuse scandal and after also bringing his experience to the Vatican – a Boston and an O’Malley man, Msgr. Robert Oliver, came to Rome in 2012 as promotor of Justice of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and who continued as first secretary oof the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which O’Malley proposed, desired, and still presides over. Still, O’Malley is aged out of the next conclave and now has no see.

Cardinal Cupich is 75 years old. He could remain in his post as the Pope does with the collaborators he trusts, but he has nevertheless reached retirement age. Cardinal Daniel DiNardo is also 75 years old. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington, is already 76 years old.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, is 74 years old and will reach retirement age in February next year.

The transition, therefore, concerns both cardinals created by Pope Francis and cardinals created by Benedict XVI. Cardinals Tobin and McElroy, both part of the “new guard” created by Pope Francis, who are well below retirement age, will undoubtedly remain active.

It is indicative that in this transition, the debate focuses on the presence or absence of pro-life themes. So much so that Bishop Robert Barron, a media guru, in a thread on X (formerly Twitter), highlighted the anti-life slippery slope of Democratic Catholics’ thinking (including Joe Biden). However, on the sidelines, he noted that he is not happy that pro-life themes have been excluded from the platform of the Republican electorate.

Why, then, is the issue still there?

There are a few reasons.

The first is that pro-abortion pressures have never been as intense as in recent times. The pro-abortion movement has gained strength, has joined forces with tremendous drivers of progressive causes, and has taken a terrain that was previously difficult even to imagine. Democratic Catholics have had to deal with all this and, pragmatically, have chosen to ride the wave. There is a need to talk about this today more than ever, precisely because it seems like an issue that should not be discussed, precisely because abortion is passed off as a given.

The second: Pope Francis has always emphasized, with extreme clarity, that practicing abortion is like “hiring a hitman” to solve a problem, but at the same time, he has asked, pragmatically, to broaden the issues of the debate to other topics. If the unborn child is the last of the last, we must not forget the previous ones who are already there. Namely, the poor, migrants, and people forced to live in war.

The idea is that instead of waging a cultural battle, living in society and making it better while accepting the things that make it worse is important. Ultimately, that is what the Christians of the first centuries did. The Christians of the first centuries, however, had a clear purpose in proclaiming the Gospel. Today, Jesus Christ seems to be marginalized.

The third is that we are experiencing a crisis of rejection.

Faced with the idea of being in the world by accepting the world, John Paul II instead promoted the idea of a Church present in the culture of the time, capable of fighting and creating a better future. Pro-life issues were not the only issues discussed; they were part of a series of issues that touched, in fact, the significant issues of the world. After all, it would be enough to read the speeches of John Paul II to understand that being a culture warrior did not simply mean flattening oneself in the fight on some issues.

Benedict XVI had tried to fuel this idea, asking for a leap in cultural quality. The call for a new generation of Catholic politicians, the speeches to intellectuals, and also the theological work to rediscover the figure of Jesus of Nazareth of the Gospels asked bishops, priests, and faithful for a leap in philosophical, theological, and intellectual quality. It was no longer enough to fight for the outstanding issues; it was necessary to fight for Jesus Christ and the faith. As quoted in Peter’s letter, it is essential to have clear reasons for one’s hope.

Pope Francis instead returned to a more pragmatic approach, which was incredibly close to that of the Church of the Seventies and experienced a strong transition. The narrative According to one powerful narrative, John Paul II swept away that particular approach to impose his own, and avoided issues considered progressive in order to impose a sort of conservatism on the Church.

The fact that there is a narrative, however, testifies that what proclaimed itself a minority and persecuted was present and alive in the Church despite everything. Pope Francis stuck to that narrative; he read the United States through the eyes of Protestant prosperity theology and probably failed to read the vibrant Catholic faith that exists in the States despite all its limitations.

Rejecting the US Church creates a crisis that ultimately concerns the entire Church.

Many of today’s debates are old in form and substance, and a mirror of a world that had yet to digest the Second Vatican Council. Not that the Council has been wholly digested today, but Pope Francis, after all, has chosen only one path for implementing the Council; he has not chosen, as the Church has always done, a plurality of paths in the face of the one truth.

So, the debate sparked by Cardinal Cupich’s prayer leaves a question open: Has the Church, in these years, gone forward or gone backward?

We have talked about reforms, a new mentality, and even a state of permanent Synod, but we always find ourselves faced with the same great themes and solutions that were proposed decades ago. Much of the future of the Church depends on the episcopal transition, which also concerns the transition to a renewed college of cardinals. And the US example can be a specimen for the entire Catholic Church, called to renew itself and to live a generational transition.

At the same time, the Church is called to overcome the obstacles of the past, to pour—a gain, to borrow from Gospel imagery—new wine into new wineskins, and not to read reality with the eyes of the past. After all, the significant problem of this time was needing to learn how to read the signs of the times honestly.